July 21, 2015

Warehouse AW14

Warehouse, the fashion retailer, turned to Chalk Social to create a digital campaign that would boost awareness of the new AW14 collection. Chalk Social discuss the work

Brief

Warehouse has always designed their clothes with modern, urban life in mind. AW14 was a whole new season and brand new aesthetic: ‘60s shapes, luxurious textures and oversized fur coats in muted neutrals and soft fondant shades. Warehouse wanted a digital campaign that showcased their catwalk-inspired, sharp tailoring, and also tied in with the launch of their content-rich digital platform. The key objective was reach, serving millions of impressions across multiple channels to increase awareness of the new collection, and to ensure that Warehouse was the go-to for the season’s wardrobe.

September 2014 saw the launch of the Warehouse digital platform, centered on the ‘Tales of the City’ blog—the modern day handbook for any woman navigating the daily trials and style tribulations of living in a city. Featuring partnerships with inspirational women, from bloggers to DJs to mixologists, the targeting for this campaign had to be relevant to capture the attention of a wide variety of fashion-forward women aged 23 to 40.

This also meant identifying new audience segments, and driving them to the site not only to convert but also to explore and continue to engage with the new platform and blog. The campaign was the starting point for what has become a hugely popular blog that has initiated a series of exclusive events, parties and competitions.

Strategy

Programmatic display

We used a mix of custom-made white lists, contextual and semantic targeting around fashion and lifestyle related keywords and content. This ensured ads only appeared alongside premium and relevant content such as blogs, press coverage and fashion publications, guaranteeing relevancy and reducing wasted ad impressions served to a less engaged audience.

Facebook

We used News Feed ads targeting females aged 23 to 40 who are interested in fashion, trends and style, and nightlife and going out. We kept social, social. Appealing to our audience through social interests, we connected with them in a more focused way.

Twitter

We promoted Tweets targeting females interested in fashion, lookalike converters, and lookalike followers. The lookalike converters refined our focus on driving sales for Warehouse, and discovered new audiences similar to those that had already purchased. Lookalike followers allowed us to find new consumers that had already expressed an interest in similar content, and serve ads to engaged audiences.

To ensure the campaign stood out on what can sometimes be a cluttered space on social media, we used a unique, custom-built social unit.

Methodology

A frequency cap of one impression per user was implemented across all display activity, targeting only placements above the fold for maximum exposure. Display creative featured a rich media ad unit that tied in all social channels, as well as showcasing campaign imagery. Social buttons encouraged sharing and engagement across all social channels to further spread awareness of the campaign.

We engaged consumers on Facebook and Twitter with a high-impact, expandable, rich media ad unit. The rich media unit allowed users to browse through a selection of images and provided multiple interaction options. Users could click through to the in-ad look book to see more of the collection, and then share across diverse social channels or click through to the Warehouse website to shop. This covered all campaign objectives. The creatives were built in HTML5 and Flash to maximise audience reach across various devices.

From work, to drinks, to a night out, the Warehouse AW14 collection blends effortlessly from day to night. Targeting had to be granular enough to reflect this multitude of audiences and interests, while encouraging sales as well as engagement. A combination of strategies enabled us to do this, not just across display but also on social channels.

On Twitter, promoted Tweets allowed maximum exposure for campaign content, and the custom-built social unit encouraged engagement with the collection without forcing the consumer to click away from the platform.

On Facebook, page post ads were served seamlessly into users’ News Feeds, expanding into the same social unit when clicked on. Easily minimised, the ad unit was high impact but not intrusive.

Results

– Nine million unique users reached
– 70,696 clicks and engagements
– 0.35 per cent CTR on display
– 0.88 per cent on Facebook
– 4.78 per cent on Twitter
– Once opened, CTR from the social unit to the Warehouse site was almost 50 per cent for Facebook, and over 60 per cent for Twitter
– Over 300 per cent interaction rate with the social unit
– 1,479 new Facebook fans as direct result of campaign
– Close to 300 per cent ROI